Hasbro to bring back Micronauts

No pics yet, just this info here.
http://toynewsi.com/news.php?catid=278&itemid=15055
Quote:
During Hasbro's 2009 Fall Investor Day Event held today at their headquarters in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, they announced the re-introduction of the classic toy line Micronauts originally created by Japan company Takara in 1974 under the name Microman and later launched in the United States in 1976 and backed by a Marvel Comics comic book series in 1979. As many know, Takara is the same company that originally invented the Transformers line and continues to work with Hasbro today. No specifics were given by Hasbro's Brian Chapman (VP if Hasbro's Global Designs) about what we can expect from the Micronauts brand other than that we can expect Hasbro to revise, reinvent and re-ignite the brand so it is exciting for fans old and new alike. There also was some indication that a television series and/or major motion picture could be in the works for this brand.

And in related news from the Wall Street Journal, official word of a Micronauts movie being produced with J.J. Abrams:
J.J. Abrams, who created the TV show "Lost" and directed this summer's "Star Trek" film, is in discussions to produce a movie about Japanese toy line Micronauts, which Hasbro just acquired.

Pretty amazing stuff! I hope there are some decent reissues connected to all of this.

Wow! This one comes as a real surprise. Toys I can dig, I just hope the movie doesn't suck.

I love a lot of JJ's stuff including Star Trek.
I suppose this would mean a movie line of figures in addition to re- imagined Micronauts. Some vintage reissues would be great too.

well, i just watched G.I. Joe tonight, and noticed that Hasbro has a fancy little logo thing going on at the begin of the film. one step up from the reg. text on the transformers flicks. so hopefully this is the sign of future film franchises. micronauts would be fantastic!

.....
really looking forward to seeing what the new and improved toy line has to offer.
but usually, whenever a company markets a project as "catering to the new and old fan base alike" ends up being a total lie...granted, my only examples are music (i.e., metallica), but i'm guessing the same could most definitely apply..

I actually kinda dread new Micronauts toys. Don't get me wrong--I'd love some DECENT (read: not Pallisades) reissues or even English-packaged editions of some of the Magne or LED Microman series from ~10 years ago.

But as for *new* toys, I can totally imagine Hasbro making them like their existing Star Wars and GI Joe toy lines. Cheap-feeling rubbery PVC...with weird proportions. Meh.

I actually kinda dread new Micronauts toys. Don't get me wrong--I'd love some DECENT (read: not Pallisades) reissues or even English-packaged editions of some of the Magne or LED Microman series from ~10 years ago.

But as for *new* toys, I can totally imagine Hasbro making them like their existing Star Wars and GI Joe toy lines. Cheap-feeling rubbery PVC...with weird proportions. Meh.

Im with sanjeev. If anything I would be more scared of the toys than the movie. I doubt they will resemble micronauts aside from the name and only drive up the prices of the originals.

Well, I’m really not invested in the new toys being something that would appeal to me. What I am looking forward to is Microman, Micronauts & Henshin Cyborg getting some basic respect in the collectors world. At this point, they are looked at as a footnote and not much else. When real collectors know they are deeper and sadly overlooked.

And this might push the prices of vintage stuff up, but at the same time it assures there will be tons more toy dealers who are scoping out caches of vintage stuff that would otherwise be tossed in the trash.

For the long term view of Microman and such, this is all good. Heck, a Biotron or Microtron Mr. Potato head might make some cringe, but if kids go for them all the better.

Last edited by MicromanZone on Mon Nov 09, 2009 3:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm a Henshin Cybo fanatic, but I'm glad HC is just a footnote. I've gotten my hands on some very rare stuff for decent prices simply because the average collector has probably never heard of them.

I agree. The quieter the better to me. My basic collecting habits are slow and cheap. I've been able to get a lot of wonderful pieces for insane prices over the years just because not that many people were paying attention, or because my friends didn't bid against me when you could still see bidding id's on ebay hahaha

I'm a Henshin Cybo fanatic, but I'm glad HC is just a footnote. I've gotten my hands on some very rare stuff for decent prices simply because the average collector has probably never heard of them.

Heh...I don't mind hype over vintage stuff. It's the hype over new stuff that's somehow rare as vintage stuff...

Anyway, here's a cool analysis of this turn of events from Microbry.

Should be interesting to see what comes out of this.

Heh...I don't mind hype over vintage stuff. It's the hype over new stuff that's somehow rare as vintage stuff...

Anyway, here's a cool analysis of this turn of events from Microbry.

Thanks, Sanjeev!

(I finally got registered on here. Apparently I actually had been earlier but I think my spam filter ate the activation notification, whoops.)

Yeah, I should point out that this analysis is deliberately optimistic and making the assumption Hasbro actually thinks this through properly. I'll be the first to admit though that it's just as possible they could do something really bone-headed and ignore most of those possibilities and potential, and just churn out some crappy hack job. If nothing else though, I'm sure they must be aware of what happened with the Palisades line and will likely do their best to release something that cannot ever be confused with it.

I really hope they do *right* by the line myself. I don't really care how they do it, as long as it's some kind of solidly developed effort, preferably with the Japanese team on board. If it appeals to me as a fan, great, if not, that's still fine, less money to waste on the new toys and we still have the other original toylines, even if the bastard child grows popular with the kiddies.

No one ever wants to see prices driven up on vintage stuff, no argument there. I do hope though that if it is successful, it will lead to TakaraTomy doing an "encore"-type series of toys from the original line that covers more of the vehicles and robots and such rather then endless recolors of reissued figures.